Preeti Vangani is an Indian poet & essayist. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of San Francisco. Her work has been published in BOAAT, Noble/Gas Qtrly and Juked, among other journals. She is the winner of the Raedleaf Poetry Prize and has a debut book of poems titled Mother Tongue Apologize forthcoming in early 2019. Loa Niumeitolu is a Tongan poet working with the East Bay Ohlone community. Robert Anbian has been described as “a passionate virtuoso steeped in these times and deep with tradition,” according to Richard Hack, “[whose] poetry crackles with currency – hiply linguistic turns of natural originality, rhythmically brimming with a tempestuous taste of ecstasy, reason, and love.” Dusty Dog Reviews declared him “a genius or a Venusian.” This series, active for nearly twenty years, is currently curated and co-hosted by San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck with Jerry Ferraz. An open mic…

$20 cover charge Darren Johnston, trumpet Larry Ochs, saxophone Fred Frith, guitar Jason Hoopes, electric bass Jordan Glenn, drums Many will remember the music Reasons for Moving made when they played Bird & Beckett with Allison Miller on drums this back in January. In early November, Johnston, Frith and Ochs, with bassist Jason Hoopes and drummer Jordan Glenn, are back for two sets of music on the eve of their departure for a European tour that will take them to the Music Unlimited 2018 Festival, Wels, Austria on November 11th, followed by: November 13 – Festival Jazzdor, Strasbourg // Nov. 15 – Porgy and Bess, Vienna // Nov 16 – Alte Gerberei , St. Johann-in-Tirol, Austria // Nov 17 – Argo 16 in Marghera, Venice // Nov 18 – Area Sismica, Forli, Italy. Initiated by Darren Johnston and imagined originally as a one-off recording project, this uncategorizable quintet spear-headed collaboratively…

The danger with expressions like “Why do bad things happen to good people?” is — always viewing ourselves as the good people, when sometimes we are the bad things. Comfort is always good, but at times we need to change. As writers, Andi Frederick & Joseph TinGin seek to be honest in their compositions, to look objectively at their own human experiences, and to tell the truth about them. Sometimes there are no clear heroes or villains, but real humans, each with their own stories to be told. It was by no means of predestination, divine intervention, or even serendipity that Frederick and TinGin happened to have crossed paths in San Francisco in the fall of 2016, but rather a series of whelming events and decisions. However, a shared method of songwriting as self-medication, a means of processing life’s experiences, became the catalyst for a collaboration that would eventually come…

This ‘sampling’ from the work of 2nd century AD Roman poet Martialis covers some of the usual suspects, epigrams, verse tags, scurrilous and otherwise, but it also includes a number of poems from the Liber Spectaculorum, the Book of Spectacles, devoted to poems on the Games at the Colosseum and, often, in praise of Caesar. Martial’s themes can make the modern reader very uncomfortable, as well as make them laugh, even 2,000 years after his death. Neeli Cherkovski and Paul Fericano will participate with Art as interlocutors and poets. Read more on Art Beck here.

$20 cover charge; $10 for students/musicians/low income.   San Francisco Bay Area bassist, composer and bandleader Lisa Mezzacappa and her band, the Lisa Mezzacappa Six, premiere a new suite for jazz sextet, “Cosmicomics 2018,” inspired by Italian novelist Italo Calvino’s beloved “Cosmicomics” stories, which humanize various scientific, astronomical and biological phenomena into poignant and playful fables. The Lisa Mezzacappa Six, featuring tenor saxophonist Aaron Bennett, guitarist John Finkbeiner, vibraphonist Mark Clifford, electronic musician Tim Perkis, bassist Lisa Mezzacappa and drummer Jordan Glenn, developed Cosmicomics 2018 during a four-concert residency at Bird & Beckett Books throughout 2018, where Mezzacappa and her musicians performed works-in-progress, discussed aspects of the stories motivating the musical composition, read from Calvino’s work, and experimented with new musical ideas and structures before an intimate and engaged literary audience. The Lisa Mezzacappa Six was formed in 2014 as an expanded version of Mezzacappa’s longtime quartet, Bait & Switch. The…

https://jackhertz.com/ byoc (bring your own coffee!)

Great jazz music from the traditions of New Orleans, Chicago, New York and San Francisco. Al Molina, trumpet Jerry Logas, reeds & vocal Jeffrey Burr, guitar Dean Reilly, bass Vince Lateano, drums Al Molina was born to a musical family in San Francisco in 1935. He made his mark on the local jazz scene in the early 1960s, first heard on vinyl in the 1966 release, “Jazz from San Francisco,” and named Best Jazz Trumpet in San Francisco by the Bay Area Jazz Society in 1983. Along the way, Al has released three records as a leader, including the great “Amigos Todos” in 2003. He’s toured internationally twice and has appeared at the Monterey, Russian River and San Jose Jazz Festivals over a long and beautiful career.

Johnny Escobedo – guitar & vocals Mario Vega – flute & sax Norman Downing – percussion & vocals Cuban son, boleros y guajiras, the sounds of Havana and the Cuban countryside–and more!  El Guajiro plays the gamut of popular music from Latin America. With this personnel, the same configuration as heard at Bird & Beckett this past February, El Guajiro’s music is beautifully represented on the 2017 cd entitled… “El Guajiro!” In stock at Bird & Beckett! Read more on El Guajiro on their site:  click here!  

Lovely jazz trio led by one of San Francisco’s foremost jazz bassists, with guest pianist Phillipe Villa of Nice and drummer Aaron Kierbel, in one of San Francisco’s best listening venues… lovely acoustics, lovely books, lovely musicians. Lovely all ’round… do come! $15 cover ($10 for students/musicians/low income).  

Terese Taylor joins Andre Custodio Saturday morning through the noon hour to create a tapestry of improvised ambient sound.  $5 suggested donation if you come for the music. A buck or two is nice if you just happen to be browsing & don’t mind supporting the arts. Saturday mornings through November 24th, Andre Custodio presents a series of performances of textured sound utilizing electronics and other instruments for a bookstore environment. While it’s not a concert setting, you’re welcome to find a seat — whether to listen more closely or to peruse a book. Mostly, it’s desired that you’ll feel free to wander and browse. Andre won’t be easily distracted and he’s not seeking to distract you. The series begins Saturday, August 25th and continues through Saturday, November 24th. Andre will be performing solo for most of these Saturdays, but will occasionally invite others to fill in. Audible Method was established in 1997 in San…

Guitarist Jordan Samuel’s quartet, featuring bassist John Wiitala, drummer Lorca Hart and trumpeter Henry Hung, will be performing a variety of jazz standards.   In honor of the upcoming Halloween holiday, the band will be playing scarier selections than normal such as “Friday the 13th”, “Witchcraft”, “Old Devil Moon” and others.  We hope to see you for what will surely be a thrilling and exciting evening of music!  

The 230 Jones Street Band represents a continuous line of descent from the earliest days of Friday evening jazz in the bookshop! Saxophonists Jerry Logas and Ray Loeckle, guitarist Glenn Deardorf, bassist Dean Reilly and drummer Tony Johnson play great jazz from swing to bop and beyond every fourth Friday at Bird & Beckett. They make up the legacy band that was handed the mantle by series founder and saxophonist Chuck Peterson when he retired up to Santa Rosa a couple of years ago. A weekly gig for the Chuck Peterson Trio beginning in October 2002 at Bird & Beckett’s original location around the corner on Diamond Street initiated a tradition of live jazz in Glen Park that has continued ever since, with never a missed Friday in all those years.  Chuck’s original trio grew to a quartet and then a quintet and sometimes boasted as many as eight players — and…

$20 cover charge. $10 for students / musicians / low income. Michael Dease, trombone Jason Hainsworth, tenor saxophone Spencer Hoefert, guitar Cris Carrera, bass Robert Chapa, drums Jason Hainsworth, Assistant Director of the Roots, Jazz & American Music program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (to initiates, the SFCM RJAM), welcomes long-time running-buddy-in-jazz Michael Dease to front a jazz quintet as they run through a fat program of jazz classics and originals.  Michael is here in San Francisco out of East Lansing, Michigan as a visiting faculty member in the RJAM program, putting the students through their paces in an enlightening week of classes. The rhythm section for this date comprises three first- and second-year students of the SFCM’s RJAM program who vividly demonstrate the talents that each new generation brings to America’s finest indigenous music, once again ensuring a bright future for jazz in America! Michael Dease was…

Bill Glassley returns to Bird & Beckett to present his newly published book, A Wilder Time: Notes from a Geologist at the Edge of the Greenland Ice (Bellevue Literary Press, 2018). In A Wilder Time, Glassley, a surfer turned geologist at the University of California at Davis and an emeritus researcher at Aarhus University, Denmark, retraces his several expeditions to Greenland alongside Danish colleagues Kai Sorensen and John Korstgard in this thoughtful volume about how his scientific work shifted his perspective on notions of wilderness. The men spent weeks camped out and “isolated from the rest of humanity” to sample, photograph, and measure ancient bedrock. Though their scientific interests were purely academic, Glassley says, their experiences were “almost mystical.” Glassley divides his narrative into three primary sections, each featuring observations that helped to change his perception of Greenland’s vast terrain. The first part, “Fractionation,” deals with ways in which Glassley’s expectations had…